


Commander, Padawan, Apprentice?

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Anakin Skywalker, Blood and Injury, Broken Bones, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano Friendship, Darth Maul is the Worst, Explosions, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt Ahsoka Tano, Hurt CT-5597 | Jesse, Kidnapping, Magic, Minor Character Death, Protective Anakin Skywalker, Protective CT-7567 | Rex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:20:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29775378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Ahsoka is undoubtedly Anakin Skywalker's padawan, no one seems to have a problem with this except Darth Maul who'd much rather take her as an apprentice himself.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, Darth Maul & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	Commander, Padawan, Apprentice?

**Author's Note:**

> this ones explicit due to the injuries- just saying-
> 
> also i got new sheets and their nice and I'm pretty content :) coraline au coming next. also anyone elses ao3 being weird where it mismatches the order of what you've posted?
> 
> also I'm about to start reading the ahsoka novel so I'm like :0 maybe ill be inspired, but like i got two more ahsoka fics in my folder to write, and four botw ones before imma think about anymore projects lol

It isn’t uncommon for them to split up on missions anymore, it one of the only ways to cover more ground, and she was old and capable enough to handle herself without Anakin looking over her shoulder. That didn’t mean she was on her own so to speak, Rex and a band of clones were by her side and under her command on the planet's surface while Obi-Wan and Anakin were on the planet’s moon. 

Ahsoka didn’t see much of anything out of the ordinary, but she didn’t dare let her guard down. Especially not when she gets separated from the clones and a dark presence unsheathe itself only to be followed by another, one far more impressive and daunting.  So much so it sent shivers down her spine, and her wrist instinctively rose to her mouth. The device clicked as she commed Rex again, hoping it went through this time. One might have asked her why she didn’t contact her master or grandmaster first, and maybe she should have, but her loyalty for the moment was with the men in the foxhole with her.

She had to know if they were okay, if they encountered the beings jumping out from the force's shadow, if they’d perished under her watch. Ahsoka’s facial marked brow creases in concern, she doesn’t know what she would do if Rex or Jesse, or even the bright and kind new shinies accompanying her that haven’t even picked out their names, died.

“Rex?” She calls again, voice growing tight with the beginnings of panic before she feels him and hears his clunky approaching steps. 

“Commander!” She turns to him quickly, her grip on her sabers firm enough to make her fingers numb. The blond clone is disheveled, pauldron cracked, paint chipped, and she’d sure theirs the startings of a crack in the corner of his visor.

His communicator is sparking, an obvious explanation as to why he couldn’t reach her, and he’s holding his gun at the ready, “Sir, it’s Savage Opress he’s here and he’s taken Jesse,”

Ahsoka finds herself breathless at the revelation, her determination rearing enough that when the force shrouds with this new presence, Ahsoka is running off towards it. The drive to save her friend, her brothers strong enough that she forgets to reach out to Anakin. Rex doesn’t remind her either, he too is worried for his brothers.

An explosion wrecks the evacuated town, the cause for such an evacuation unknown, and Ahsoka chases the flames with fervor.

She knows the dangers, seen the holo’s and read the reports. Savage had killed a great many Jedi master’s and their padawans too. He’d overpowered even her own master and grandmaster in battle and...he’d been apprentice not only to Count Dooku but Darth Maul as well.

_ Darth Maul. _

The girl’s nose scrunched, the oppressive darkness that was near triple the yellow Zabrak easier to focus on now that she found herself within reach. Her stride falters when the shredded body of one of the new shinnies blocks her path.

Head torn in two, left arm paces away, the other still attached to his torso and cut off legs. As much as she wants to stop now, she can’t, there are other troopers depending on her but she’ll be back later. She hopes that poor trooper knows that, that when he’s reconnected with the force he’ll know she would come back to give him a proper burial, even if it was the last thing she did.

Rex keeps with her stride, gulping at his fallen brother and kept forward for the ones still waiting. There’s a scream that echoes in the distance, inside one of the buildings he assumes with the echo provided, but he can’t place which one.

That seemingly doesn’t matter, not when they turn down the alley into the courtyard where the hulking behemoth of a Zabrak attacks his brother’s. He doesn’t wait for her signal, he rushes into battle figuring she will follow his lead in do the same.

But when he turns his head to check, the sixteen year old togurta’s face is burdened. Tilted off to the side before her eyes squeeze shut, and he knows all too well what she’s doing. She’s listening, finding the source of the scream that they both know belongs to Jesse if his absence meant anything.

Rex had connected the dots, it wasn’t a stretch that Maul would be here either. And for a moment he’s forced to weigh who he will follow, not wanting to abandon his brothers, but ultimately terrified at the possibility of the 501st little sister, his commander, his general’s padawan. The one he was meant to serve was going off on her own to a seemingly certain death. 

Thankfully and not Ahsoka doesn’t give him a choice, “Help them, I’ll get Jesse. Then we need to call Anakin and retreat!” It’s sensible and not, Rex still doesn’t want to leave her on her own but she is right about retreating and contacting the general.

The togruta branches off, out of sight, he can’t tell which building she even runs into without dodging a saber to the face as he works with his brothers in arms to occupy the beast until they could retreat.

Ahsoka follows Jesse’s screams until she’s nearly tripping on the staircase of the clocktower, the ascending town's highest point. In fact everything here was nearly touching the sky, and her calves burned wishing she could have taken the elevator rather than the stairs.

She is awarded for her efforts when she comes face to face with the blood red Zabrak and Jesse’s kneeling form. 

“Ahsoka Tano, yours is a name not familiar to me,” his eyes rake over her, sizing her up as she locks herself in a stance, and that is true if only for a second before he steals the information he needs about her from the writhing clone before something in him ripples in the force. 

Padawan to the chosen one. Unrelenting determination. Admirable skill and experience. And traits he knows well because they are his own. There is also some leeway he sees, she had the potential to be a formidable Jedi or a devastating sith. He'd prefer the second option.

She’d be a fine apprentice, he had high hopes for his brother but now that she’s in front of him, her force signature a storm of its own. He cannot see a future of two’s where she is not the one by his side.  He could train two, if only for now until they were forced to fight for who would come out on top. But something in him knows, it will not be his brother winning, something in his magic soul knew it had to be her.

_Demanded_ it be her. The voices in his head, the magic left from his mother yearning, she was what fit. This he was certain of, he had to get her to Mother Talzin and make sure though. He was very intrigued with what the mother of magic would say because surely with this pull there was something more beneath the surface.

Maul wanted to understand.

“Run little ‘un,” Jesse groaned, urging her back but the girl ignores him even when it’s obvious it pains her to do so.

“It’s a good thing I know who you are,” she retorts, her scowl something of a dream to him. 

“Yes, I’m glad,” he’s brutally honest, and her confusion at the statement is avid. Whether it be his shocking and open honesty or the fact that his words hold no malice or even sick delight, she doesn't know.

He looks at her as if she’s the key to all his problems, and Jesse on the ground growls at the attention. Moving to get to his feet, nearly falling before he manages to rise, his blaster aimed at the half-sith, bodily moving in front of the togruta.

“Did you do this to the village?” the lack of people and the surging echo of darkness went hand in hand, “Did you kill them all?” she wouldn’t put it past him. In fact he’d done it before.

Gently she pulls Jesse back with the force, and her dismissal startles him. She motions for him to leave, leaving herself and the sith to battle alone. He’s never wanted to deny orders so badly, but he’s also pretty sure his blaster is broken to the point a shot wouldn’t even go off if he pulled the trigger while he’d be no help in a fight since his body and mind were so shaken.

He begrudgingly leaves her alone, once out of the room he falls down the steps, a spare bomb on his hip falling onto the second step to the top as he tumbles down and down. Unknowing of the added danger he left his commander in as he passed out on the very bottom of the stairs.

* * *

Rex isn’t entirely sure how they manage to pull it off, half the new shinnies dead, but somehow they’ve managed to knock the Zabrak down to the ground unconscious. A shiny nearly goes for the kill but Rex doesn't allow it, knowing the jedi would prefer to take him in alive.

Speaking of, a shiny hands over his comm the second Rex motions towards it: “General Skywalker,” Rex calls in, forgetting most of his decorum and not in the right mind to explain why he wasn’t calling from his own communicator.

“Rex report?” it’s more of a command than a question, urgency and fear in the general's tone. Surely he’d figured out by now since the dark presence was noticeable to even them.

“Yes General, we’ve managed to incapacitate Savage Opress but the commander has engaged Darth Maul on her own,” the words are surprisingly steady especially when he feels seconds away from dropping, but Ahsoka is still in danger and he can finally act.

The image of his general pops up in blue, brows stony, jaw set, and his eyes blazing with concern and fury.

“Get her out of there Rex, now,” he practically shouts, trying to scan the surroundings as if he would catch sight of Ahsoka and do something to help which he obviously couldn't. Anakin’s orders outweighed Ahsoka’s, so Rex didn’t hesitate to run off in the direction she’d gone, pissed that he hadn’t seen what building she’d run into.

He doesn’t need to look very far because in the arched doorway of the clocktower, bloodied and bruised on the floor in cracked armor was Jesse. He doesn’t get the chance to move because from up above another explosion rocks the town.

Looking towards the sky, he and subsequently Anakin is terrified as both Darth Maul and Ahsoka are sent flying towards the other rooftops, there’s blood covering the entire side of her left lekku, gashes marked over her arms and Maul looks close to the same with his torso busted.

He falls faster than she with his added weight-the metal legs something of a blessing in this circumstance. Neither men can tell if he’s knocked out or not, but Ahsoka certainly was before she jolted, sabers igniting again mid air at the last second as she came crashing down.

Her sabers caught shingles, slowing her descent but ultimately breaking her left knee and tearing the front of the same leg of her leggings and skin as it scrapes against the building. Her right leg hangs over the edge, hundreds of feet above she feebly curls inward on herself before the sith lord's hand catches her ankle, pulling her away from her remaining saber and safety.

“Commander!” Rex shouts, whatever Anakin had yelled as well was white noise as he rushed towards the alley to find her only to smack into a dead end, missing as Maul in the free fall positioned her body atop his own before they hit the ground.

Her weight pressing down to his metal hips and legs, ultimately breaking her lower back and cracking most if not all her ribs. Blood dribbles from her lips excessively, lips bitten with lacerations, agony consuming her.  Maul too was riddled with pain, but that’s where he triumphed. Sitting up from the ground, Maul gripped the girls chin to assess the damage and make sure she wouldn’t die before they got to Dathomir so Mother Talzin could heal her with her magic.

The sith stares into her clouded, dazed eyes that screamed in pain with her force signature. Moisture mixing with the blood lathering her cheeks, but there was still something of determination there.

She was sucking it up the best she could, even while broken, “It’s a shame we hadn’t met sooner _my apprentice_ ,” she passes out not long after, slumping against his skin as he wraps an arm around her torso.  The oncoming beat of footsteps letting him know he doesn’t have much time. Rising from the ground, the incoming clone trooper-7567 has his blasters raised, his arms stuttering for a moment when he realizes he can’t get a shot in because Maul was using her as a shield.

“Put her down,” Rex demands, seeing red as her crumpled body was held up by an evil arm thrown across her collarbones. Maul’s free hand ignited his saber, positing that in front of her as well, meaning any blaster shot would prove fatal to her if the Zabrak moved to deflect. 

Rex and Anakin who are watching the scene tersely don’t understand why he hadn’t killed her yet. They weren’t complaining but it didn’t make any sense, Maul could easily jump and slaughter Rex and be on his way without any hassle if he hurried. What was he planning?

Maul rolls his eyes, seemingly annoyed before sending the clone backwards; the sounds of screams emanating from behind the wall filling the clones head. His brothers were dying, meaning Savage had not only woken but escaped as well.

By the time Rex manages to open his eyes and register General Skywalker demanding he check in. His arm is broken and the bits of debris he'd crashed into were keeping him pinned. Fifteen minutes pass and Anakin stands above him with bloodshot eyes. 

All the shinies are dead, Ahsoka had been taken and not dumped once they managed to get their hands on a ship, and Jesse had a killer concussion.  Obi-Wan watched the scene tersely as they fished Rex out, his hand muddled in his beard as his padawan looked ready to march a war path. One he knew he’d follow without question.

“He may have taken her to Dathomir,” the suggestion is the only thing that makes sense and even still it doesn’t but he has no other idea where the former sith-lord would go.

“Why?” Anakin growls, and Obi-Wan decidedly and wisely doesn’t take offence or even try to reprimand the man knowing it would only make things worse. 

“There’s no other place for him to go. It’s possible he’s leading us there for a confrontation, if it’s something else I haven’t a clue,”

“Jesse was the last one with them both before the blast,” Rex advised blearily, failure weighing him down.  The two jedi nod, leaving without a word to check in on the tattooed clone before the medics could take him away.

“I didn’t like how he looked at her,” the man slurred, “He went through my head to learn about her...it’s like he wanted them to get along,” consciousness fell from him immediately after, exhausted.  The force jumps in waves as Anakin storms off, not fond of the potential implications of Maul taking an interest in anyone, especially his padawan.

* * *

She couldn’t think or focus, not as blood filled her torso and her bones cried with every breath. The altar underneath held her weight evenly enough as to keep her calm and in the least amount of pain as two voices spoke overhead, one a deep tenor and the other a bewitching scrawl.

Words don’t even come close to infiltrating her inflamed montrals, the closest thing to sensation she’s got is a throbbing twinge of agony and the speckles of peridot she could see through the slits of her eyes.

“She’ll make a wonderful apprentice,” Mother Talzin advises, revelling in the broken body prone on the table, a perfect work of art that would be further invigorated by her magic.

“No she will not,” Anakin’s voice startles them both, his lightsaber already activated and Obi-Wan at the ready behind him. 

_ “Snips?”  _ he presses along their bond, and weakly Ahsoka reaches out as her body falls slack, no longer even writhing. She doesn’t manage to portray any words, barely any feelings either, but there is the slightest impression Anakin only barely managed to make out.

A gentle hand curling over his heart and latching on.

“ _Our_ apprentice will die if you don’t let Mother heal her,” Maul cautions, while Savage runs up on Kenobi and Mother Talzin begins her ritual. Anakin ends it all by dropping his shields and letting his power rip.

Dathomir lights, shining with his brightness. Savage, Mother Talzin, and most importantly Maul careening backwards in a devastating blast as the chosen one somehow manages to heal his padawan all in one go as well, all at the cost of passing out with no recollection of how he’d done it.

It’ll bug him later, the council as well, but for now Ahsoka was in his arms-not a scratch on her. Maul, Savage, and Talzin were locked up tight, and he had the makings of saving his wife without falling to the dark. Everything would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
